


A thin line

by Stiiliinsski



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Detention, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Hogwarts Sixth Year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23630512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stiiliinsski/pseuds/Stiiliinsski
Summary: After Hermione breaks Malfoy's nose, they both end up in detention for the rest of the year.(Draco and Hermione through the years at Hogwarts.)"She turns furiously, pulls back her arm and slams her fist in his face. She feels pain shoot through her fist, all over her arm and in her shoulder. Something cracked when she hit his nose, but as blood pours down his mouth and chin and pain swells in her fist, she’s not sure whether it’s her hand or his nose that’s broken."
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	A thin line

**Author's Note:**

> I advise you to read 27th chapter from the fourth book, just so you'd understand what happens before the events that follow in this story.  
> I plan on this to be around 10 chapters long. Each chapter will cover one semester.  
> Thank you for coming on this ride with me and I hope you like it!  
> I do not own any of the characters.

It starts with her remixing Armadillo bile in the Wit-sharpening potion for too long. She is distracted and vexed by the article Skeeter has written. At first it hasn’t bothered her much, but when Snape started reading it aloud and all the waves of Slytherin laughter washed over her, she wanted to explode. And maybe even more so, she is frustrated by not knowing how the heinous writer found out about Viktor asking her to visit him during the summer. She doesn’t understand and Hermione hates not understanding. And so, when Snape sends her to sit next to Parkinson, who’s sitting right in front of Malfoy and Goyle, it is a disaster just waiting to happen.

She trudges over to her newly assigned seat with still-red-cheeks and a frown on her face. Pansy is sitting side ways, propped on her elbow, gum in her mouth and a sneer on her lips.

“We know you have more practice with love potions, Granger, but you’ll have to settle for a wit-sharpening potion.”

“Well, since learning how to brew it is the only hope for you passing this year, I’ll make the sacrifice.”

Before Parkinson can answer she turns away and continues working on her potion, ignoring the sputtering girl next to her.

Looking back, she can understand how she got confused and instead of stopping remixing Armadillo bile when the red colour turned yellow, she continued until it turned dark green. But still, she is Hermione Granger and Hermione Granger doesn’t make mistakes.

“Well, well, Mudblood, I’ve always suspected that you’ve secretly wanted to be in Slytherin, but regretting getting into the house of reckless Centaurs so much so that you’re willing to mess up your potion just so you could see the cunning green, that’s just pathetic?” She startles when she hears Malfoy quietly speak behind her, his breath warm on her neck. She makes a sudden movement with her wand and droplets of the potion spray all over her desk.

Whipping around, she looks at him with what she hopes is contempt. He walked in front of his table and is now standing behind/in front of her. She looks around for Snape, but he’s hunched over Harry’s desk and is whispering furiously to him.

“What are you on about Malfoy?”

“The potion’s not supposed to be green, but yellow. Again proving you incompetence.” He’s got a smirk on his lips and Goyle and Parkinson(who’s recovered from their previous exchange) are snickering.

“No, it’s not, you’re suppose to remix Armadillo bile until it turns green, not stop when it reaches yellow, read the instructions before pestering me.” The thing with Hermione is that she is stubborn and determined and she won’t back down when she knows she’s right and she’s right.

Except she’s not. Which Malfoy proves by summoning his textbook and reading the instructions aloud, for half the class to hear.

And then three things happen at once; Igor Karkaroff enters the dungeon and everyone grows quiet as their attention turns to him.

Her potion starts to boil and starts erupting from the cauldron.

As she’s turning, Hermione sees Malfoy put away his wand laughing mockingly at the catastrophe that used to be her potion.

Hermione prides herself at being a level headed person, she’s calm and rational and thinks through her decisions before acting on them.

But after that article and Snape reading it for everyone to hear in a way that is sure to embarrass her and not understanding how Skeeter got the information on her and Viktor and having to sit in the middle of a Slytherin lair and Malfoy being right about her potion and being insufferable and detestable and so prejudiced, well, she snaps.

Malfoy’s laughing as she helplessly watches her, already ruined, potion spill all over her desk and her stuff and her _favourite_ quill. And she knows that he made it boil over.

She turns furiously, pulls back her arm and slams her fist in his face. She feels pain shoot through her fist, all over her arm and in her shoulder. Something cracked when she hit his nose, but as blood pours down his mouth and chin and pain swells in her fist, she’s not sure whether it’s her hand or his nose that’s broken.

She cradles her hand to her chest and the entire classroom erupts.

Pansy is screaming and pushes her aside as she rushes to Malfoy, helplessly waving her arms, not knowing how to help him.

Ron is by her side in a second and is, one moment fussing over her and her fast swelling hand and the other screaming at a bleeding Slytherin.

It looks like a scene from a movie(Hermione’s dad loves action movies and she and her mom always roll their eyes at the exaggerated parts). But now, as she watches blood drip from Malfoys hands and soaks up in his shirt as he clutches at his nose, as she sees everyone in a frenzy, shouting and screaming and dramatize, she’s not so sure those scenes are overly hyperbolized.

It takes a few moments for Snape to realize what is going on, but as he does, he pushes through the students and yells at everyone to be quiet.

And so silence, except for her occasional moans of pain and Malfoy’s hard breathing, falls over everyone.

It last, though for only two moments, and even before Snape can ask what happened Pansy is screaming that Hermione is a lunatic and Ron is shouting at Malfoy and chaos ensues.

In the end, Gryffindors lose 25 points because Ron pushes Goyle to the ground and in turn Blaise hexes him with a knee-reversal hex. That, of course, causes Slytherin to lose only 10 points.

And while Snape undoes Zabini’s spell on Ron, Hermione and Malfoy are sent to Madam Pomfrey.

Hermione is sitting on a bed in the hospital wing, nursing her arm which Madam Pomfrey has only moments ago fixed, when Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape enter the room.

Malfoy is sitting a couple feet away from her, holding his head back and frowning at the ceiling and presumably her and the entire world.

Last year, after punching him, after the high she was feeling from punching the bloody git subdued, she was washed over with guilt. And she shouldn’t have been, he’s been mean and rude to her since the moment he found out she was a Muggle-born. But then, at the end of that day as she was laying in her bed, playing the moment over and over in her head, she remembered what her dad always told her “We don’t respond to violence with violence, Hermione. That’s a vicious circle. Violence will only bring more violence unless you rise above it. Kindness is where our strength really lies. That, of course, doesn’t mean that you should let someone bully you. Your greatest weapon are your words and your knowledge. When you have that, you can rise above any mean comment.”

And so she did just that, she was kind to everyone, she responded to Malfoy’s attacks with words. Knowledge was something that she didn’t have to make herself to collect, she was hungry for it. And when she looks at it, her father was right. Foundation of Slytherin’s torture was the premise that she was less; less of a witch, less worthy, less of a human. And she has proved him wrong. Every year she ends up being first in their class, with him trudging behind her in second place, she proves him wrong. Every time she rises above and to his jabs answers with a stare and a turned head, she wins. And it irks him, all of it. And so, she has come to a conclusion that she, with her friends and their laughter and happiness and joy is a winner. Because Malfoy’s smiles are sneers and his joy is torturing someone because he himself isn’t good enough. And so Hermione wins. Every time.

Except today.

Today she lowered herself to his level and she lost.

The thought makes her grind her teeth.

Headmaster and the professors approach her and Malfoy just as she makes herself stop pushing her teeth together.

She looks at the ground, unable to look any of them in the eye.

“Miss Granger, would you be kind enough to explain to us what happened?” Headmaster Dumbledore asks and she shakes her head, looking at her feet.

“Miss Granger broke Mister Malfoy’s nose. I do believe nothing justifies those actions.” Snape drawls and she looks up, heat rising in her cheeks and fury blooming in her eyes.

“Hush, Severus. If anything, you are the one to blame. To allow something like that to happen in your classroom! Outrageous!” Hermione looks at the professor for the first time but she sees disappointment in her eyes and so she looks away.

“I cannot control someone who without rhyme or reason decides to start attacking other students, Minerva!”

“Without rhyme or reason? Without rhyme or reason?!” professor repeats, bewildered, her voice growing louder with every word.

“Perhaps, we should listen to what Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy have to say before throwing around any judgement?” Dumbledore interjects, a doze of reprimand in his voice and, even though what he’s saying is a question, there is no doubt it’s an order.

“Mister Malfoy?”

“Bloody wench broke my nose, what is there to say? I demand she be punished!”

“Language!” McGonagall exclaims, shocked at his words.

Hermione only rolls her eyes, too used to Malfoy’s antics to be surprised.

“There is no excuse for punching him, but he made my potion bubble over.”

“I did not!”

“Oh, shut it, Malfoy and own up to it!”

And so they started shouting at each other and she guesses they looked quite like two four year olds, pointing fingers at each other.

One minute she’s screaming at him and the other she’s trying to speak but no sound is leaving her mouth.

Her eyes widen and she grabs at her throat, looking frantically at the professors. She can see Malfoy from the corner of her eye, his face scarlet and eyes bugged out.

“I am quite disappointed in both of you.” Dumbledore starts, “You are at the top of your class and to see you behave in such a way saddens me. Rarely is anyone without a blame, Mr. Malfoy, and knowing Miss Granger, I am quite certain she was taunted in one way or another. However, “he raises his hand to silence him when Malfoy, silently tries to speak. “Violence is not condoned in any form. I do believe that the most beneficial way of solving this is detention for both of you. Professors McGonagall and Snape will inform you of the details, but you will be serving detention once a week until the end of the semester. I do believe that this will be most beneficial to both of you.”

Hermione opens her mouth, then remembers she can’t speak and closes it.

“Yes, Miss Granger, you will be serving these detentions together. Now, I hope you will be able to talk one at a time and not over each other.” With a stroke of his wand, she feels her voice coming back to her, but she doesn’t speak. Instead, Malfoy furiously says:

“My father will hear about this!”

“I do not doubt he will, Mr. Malfoy, I do not doubt.” And with a nod of his head, Dumbledore turns and slowly walks out of the room.

“Well,” McGonagall starts, “Professor Snape and I will see you on Friday, after Potions. You are dismissed.”

Hermione only nods and gets up. Malfoy stormed out, grinding his teeth and she knows that he’ll be fighting with Snape over this.

It doesn’t settle, the thought of her spending a couple hours every week for the rest of the year with Malfoy and at exam time, too. She’s shocked and furious and mad because he’s the one torturing her and now she has to spend time with him so he’d what, learn how to behave? As if that could ever happen.

She turns the corner when something pushes her into the wall and there is Malfoy’s frowning face staring at her. She tries to push him away, but his hands on her wrists only squeeze harder.

“What do you want Malfoy?” she spits, anger flowing through every fiber of her being.

“That’s twice now.” He growls and she knows he’s referring to her punching him.

“Well, stop deserving it and I’ll stop punching you.”

He opens his mouth, ready to speak when they hear footsteps and he releases her wrists and moves away.

“This isn’t over.” He says, frowning, turns and walks away.

It’s all very anticlimactic, if Hermione says so herself.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it, if you did, feedback and constructive criticism are always appreciated.


End file.
